This brief post is quoting a portion of an article in The Washington Post: President Trump must go. I recommend reading the full article.

There is only one conclusion that any American patriot of either party can draw. Trump must go.

It has been perfectly natural during the first few months of this presidency for commentators and political leaders to treat Trump, his statements and actions like those of his predecessors. But in the past week, the dangers of his reflexive behavior have become even more crystal clear. In a matter of days, the president’s reckless remarks have triggered fears of nuclear war with North Korea, he threatened military action against Venezuela, he continued his quiet war against the environment and the U.S. public health system and then, in response to Charlottesville, he revealed his true colors and that he is not preserving, protecting and defending the Constitution as his oath requires. Rather, he is at war with it and its values — from a free press, to an independent judiciary, to equal protection for all under the law.

When a heavy snow storm dumps two feet of snow, some people blame on abortion; some folk blame it on sexual promiscuity; some folk blame it on global warming; some folk blame it on scientific experiments gone awry.

Me? I just start clearing my driveway. The blame game doesn’t achieve anything.

I won’t try to place blame for the election results. I’ll just work on how best to cope with the world that we find ourselves in.

The political conventions are over. It is time to think about voting in November.

I expect to cast my vote in favor of Hillary Clinton. Or, technically, in favor of the electoral college delegates who support Hillary Clinton.

I’m not a huge fan of Clinton. I was also not a huge fan of Bernie Sanders. But I would have supported Sanders, had he won the Democratic nomination. The realistic alternative is Donald Trump, the Republican candidate. But that alternative would be a nightmare. From my perspective, Trump is the singularly most unsuitable candidate to ever be nominated by a major party.

According to president Obama, Clinton is the most qualified candidate we have ever seen. That’s probably correct. But qualifications are not everything. What matters more, in my opinion, is the judgment skills that a president will use for issues that unexpectedly arise. In 2008, and again in 2012, I voted for Obama because I trusted his judgment. I have not agreed with all of his decisions. Yet, overall, he has exercised wise judgment in making those decision.

I’m not as sure about the judgment skills of Hillary Clinton. But, given the alternative, they will have to do. As best I can tell, Donald Trump’s judgment skills are abysmal.

I’ll just quote a little from Fred Clark (the slacktivist), who says it so well:

In a sane universe, or a moral one, it would not be not reasonable to claim that the mere presence of an unarmed dark-skinned person was a basis to fear for one’s life. In a sane world, such fear would be regarded, rather, as the very definition of racial prejudice.

The argument that the presence of an unarmed black man prompted a lethal response out of existential fear would not be possible as a defense against the accusation of racial prejudice in a sane world, because it would be rightly understood as a confirmation of such prejudice — as a confession of it.

I’m not sure that I agree with Coyne’s diagnosis, though I agree that there is a decline.

I frequently receive email from the NY Times, asking me to subscribe. But I probably read less than one article per day, on average, so I’m not inclined to answer their ads. I get much of my news from NPR, and I do contribute to my local NPR station. If the NY Times, the Washington Post and several other newspapers could get together in a consortium, and offer a subscription that would give on-line browsing access to all of those papers, I might sign up for that. I won’t subscribe to the NY Times only, because I don’t like the idea of a single source.

If you are a registered voter in the USA, then please vote on Tuesday.

I won’t tell you how to vote. I suggest you study the candidates and decide that for yourself. But I will tell you how I plan to vote for the most important positions.

For Illinois governor, my vote will be for Patrick Quinn. I don’t actually like Quinn, so this is more a case of voting against his Republican opponent (Bruce Rauner).

For US Senate, I’ll be voting for Dick Durbin. In my opinion, he has been a pretty good senator. His opponent, Jim Oberweis, should have stayed out of politics — he isn’t very good at it.

For congress, I’ll probably vote for the Democrat, but it will be a wasted vote. The 14th congressional district is a safe Republican seat. I hate that. I hated it just as much at a previous residence, where I was in a safe Democrat seat. Competitive elections are better.

And then there’s a bunch of other positions. Our ballot is too long.

We need better candidates

Yes, the choice of candidates is often poor. But vote anyway. If you don’t vote, then the politicians will take you for granted, and things won’t get better.

The shutdown

Frank Schaeffer has some ideas on what was behind the shutdown. Whether or not he is correct, they are worth reading or listening to.

I’ll note that Schaeffer is also pushing his recent book. I don’t have much to say about that. I did buy the book (the inexpensive kindle edition), but I have not finished reading it. I’m still half-way through the opening paragraph. Evidently, reading that book is not one of my high priorities.

On abortion

Samantha, at her blog Defeating the Dragons, has a multi-part series on how her views on abortion evolved. She has a summary post, “Ordeal of the Bitter Waters” which summarizes the six parts and provides links to them. The summary post is an excellent place to start.

If you are familiar with the biblical reference alluded to in the title, you can probably guess where her posts are going. Early on, she was persuaded by the “pro-life” arguments. But then real life happened to her, and she began to understand that the issue was far more complex than the pro-life folk would have you believe. She is now pro-choice.

As part of her journey, she discovered that the Christian Bible does not condemn abortion. Quite the contrary, in some circumstances it commands abortion.